drink driving thread ...

[joggerjayne]

Hypothetical question ... !

You're over the limit ...

The Police stop you.

You pull over, and park ... legally.

You lock you doors, turn up the stereo, recline your seat ... and go to sleep.

By the time you wake up tomorrow morning, you will no longer be over the limit.

What can the Police do? Smash your car window and physically drag you through the window?

[DaveKeene]

@BuenChico

Is "suspicion of being in charge whilst OTL" good enough? For on that basis they could force entry into any car.

And, since there's been no testing to this point, there can be nothing more than suspicion?

DK

Hi JJ

Most motoring offences aren't 'arrestable'. Drink-driving is. The police are empowered to force entry into a property (including a car) in order to make an arrest or to prevent an arrestable offence taking place. (Simply being in charge of a motor vehicle whilst 'over the limit', even if you're parked legally, is still an arrestable offence). So, yes, after trying to wake you and to get you to open the doors, they probably would smash a window.

Chris

[joggerjayne]

"you seem hell bent on convincing anyone who will listen having a tipple and being
'ON THE MARGIN' is ok"

That is not what I said.

The fact is, the new limit will not discourage the "serious" drink drivers. Curiously ... you don't seem bothered about that. I wonder why?

There is nothing to demonstrate that reducing the margin will improve road safety. Here are one or two European countries which have lower levels than us, but worse road safety records ...

Malta, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Serbia/Montenegro, Croatia, Latvia, Macedonia, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta.

So how can the Govt actually make a difference?

1. The disqualification for a first offence should be 3 years, not 1 year.

2. The disqualification for a second offence should be 10 years, not 3 years.

3. Causing an accident whilst driving over the limit should carry a recommended custodial sentence.

4. Causing injury whilst driving over the limit should carry a mandatory custodial sentence.

So why doesn't the Govt do this? Because they are not vote winners. They are too draconian. But ... they would stop drink driving almost overnight !

As to "i can only hazard a guess as to why you support this 'on the margin ' measure" ...

That is so rude that I will just let it go.

But should I ask ... why are you so against the idea of harsher penalties ????

Curious !

Remember ... once the Govt have tinkered with the limit, the opportunuty to introduce harsher penalties will have been missed, and they will focus on totally different areas.

So what I say to the Govt is ...

Stop tinkering, stop worring about votes, and introduce some real penalties.

[joggerjayne]

Okay, guys ...

I think we've done this one to death.

Thanks for all your replies ...

(especially Butch, who has left me feeling battered and bruised, but oddly refreshed)

x

[Davethedog]

Having skimmed this I think this is what would happen:

As you were driving you obviously were not asleep at the time so first up you would be charged with failure to comply with a police officer or obstructing the police.

As they suspect you are drunk they would break into the car and everthing else would follow on.

[karenmac60]

JJ, after I went to bed last night I had a think about what you were saying here, and I see your point and totally agree. If lowering the limit was just the start of dealing with the problem then that would be great, but governments being as they are, they'd give themselves a big pat on the back and leave it at that without doing anything about the more serious cases. There should be much harsher penalties for those who are seriously over the limit. The guy who knocked me down was twice the limit and was charged with 9 different offences (no insurance, licence, MOT, drunk driving, driving without due care and attention, leaving the scene of an accident and 3 other charges relating to his arrest) for which he got a 9 month ban - even though he didn't have a licence anyway - and a £1400 fine which he could pay up at £5 a week. None of the charges related to the fact that he had actually knocked someone down - if I had been a parked car he would've got the same, and the penalty wasn't even a slap on the wrist. It's shocking that people can more or less get away with it and yes, there should be much tougher penalties for those who do it - you are absolutely right!